Nightingale By A Hunting Stream Poem by Felix Bongjoh

(i)

Nightingale, you swallow
the world with an alto flute

and chimed song and dung
of trotted-off moments,

when horses flee
with jumping flying strides

and a shepherd breaks down stalks
and leaves in search of cattle
ambling behindbeige clouds,

as cream and pink time ticks
on with the babble of the hunter
sneaking down the valley

with soft floating feet
bloated by drizzles from whimpering
babies and whining widows.

(ii)

Nightingale, take me to
a center glowing hole, the widow's home,
red coals rubbing walls
bubbling and groaning
with waves of heat from popping mouths

in the tinder dappling off her tears,
as moments get wetter
with gongs and rumbles on roofs.

And culverts swell the hunter's song,
Warblers giving it a muscled flow.

Take me to sinking corners
behind brittle raffia walls
coated by soot and cobwebs

in stringed lumps down a ceiling
choked with wobbling hands
and feathers of crawling smoke

(iii)

Let the stream sing its own
song of stone crushed
by a hunter's feet down the path

sweeping down roots
with warblers, swallows waiting
on chopped-off banks.

Let the brook continue
a hunting spree down the soft
bumps that once wedged hills
and overgrown trees

crawling with croaking roots
building homes for skipping stones

dressing themselves
with the sandy carpets,
ascrolled-out beachstealing

swollen leaves and reeds
from racing seaweed lawns

once rugs for goats' bleeding feet
and heavy dogs trudging down
tracks as empty as their hollow gazes.

(iv)

The shepherdsets out
for another trip along the banks,

the hunter rolling out
his babbling song engulfed
by a croon, as a stream disembogues
into the twisted rope of a river.

And a morning breeze
rides the horse of a galloping
world barking with a gale

licking banana leaves, ripping
tall elephant grass stems
only elephant weeds chasing them,

while animals only eat fodder
from contrabassoons
and gongs of a trumpeted war.